Outer Limits returned to tv in 1995 with The Sandkings on the Showtime cable channel, with episodes also showing on the Sci Fi channel, while the b/w original 1960s series was on TNT and is now also seen on Sci Fi Channel, dates & times listed below.

On September 16, 1963, at 7:30 pm ET, an ominous voice began pouring out over ABC's airwaves as the picture on the TV screen proceeded to go haywire. "There is nothing wrong with your television set," the voice intoned. "We are controlling transmission. We can control the vertical. We can control the horizontal. For the next hour, we will control all that you see and hear and think. You are watching a drama that reaches from the inner mind to...THE OUTER LIMITS."

And so, with narrator Vic Perrin's deep, hypnotic voice, began one of the most overlooked yet high-quality sci-fi shows TV ever produced. For two years, and over 49 one-hour episodes (all filmed in black-and-white), the phalanx of writer, directors and performers that worked on executive producer Leslie Stevens' and producer Joseph Stefano's anthology series did their best to creep America out with their intense tales of misguided scientists, alien invasions and supernatural phenomenon. Weekly, Perrin's foreboding narration would guide us through supremely intelligent and imaginative scientific-fact-based stories dramatized by, among others Harlan Ellison (A Boy and His Dog), Robert Towne (Chinatown), Stevens (later the producer of 70s-era sci-fi series Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century), and Stefano (who came to prominence by writing scripts for Playhouse 90 and for adapting Robert Bloch's novel Psycho to the screen for legendary director Alfred Hitchcock).

Each week would also bring what series producers took to calling a "bear," their code name for the (usually) anthropomorphic monster that would rear its not-so-comely head every episode, courtesy of makeup supervisor Fred B. Phillips (who also handled makeup chores on the original Star Trek series). From the arachnid-like aliens in The Zanti Misfits to a horribly bug-eyed Warren Oates in The Mutant, each of Phillips' creations made an indelible impression in the mind of anyone who watched — exactly what the network brass at ABC wanted obviously, since they began to insist on having a monster parade through each episode. That, plus the accomplished special effects from Projects Unlimited (the FX company led by Oscar®-nominated Seven Faces of Dr. Lao and When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth effects supervisors Jim Danforth, Paul LeBaron, and Ralph Rodine), helped disguise the fact that the series was produced on a relatively low-budget.

Beautiful black & white photography from cinematographers like Conrad Hall (an Oscar® winner for 1969's Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and a nominee for 1967's In Cold Blood, among a few others) and John Nickolaus (Roger Corman's The Terror) also added immeasurably to the show's effectiveness. Nevertheless, from the time of its first airing to its last episode, the show never got the critical acclaim that it deserved, its thunder consistently stolen by Rod Serling's Twilight Zone series, which stood as an obvious "OL" influence, but which didn't always sport the horrific and sometimes even artsy bent that "OL" often had in spades (One big problem: the inclusion of "monsters" also made "OL" seem sillier and not as prestigious as its Serling-produced counterpart).

THE OUTER LIMITS may have been short-lived (in its second season, ABC programmed it against the CBS hit The Jackie Gleason Show, which killed its chances for everlasting success), but it was the writers and the producers penchant for pushing the boundaries of imagination that has kept viewers and fans returning to the series almost 35 years after it was first aired.

Starting next year (2003), the realm of the weird will no longer be confined to the small screen. Working with Trilogy Entertainment, along with producers Mark Victor and Michael Grais, MGM plans to give The Outer Limits the big screen treatment. The film will be produced by Victor & Grais, along with Pen Densham, Mark Stern, Guy McElwaine and John Watson. Mark Skelly will executive produce.

New and b/w (1960's) episodes on the Sci Fi Channel, times shown are Pacific & EST and are new color eps except as noted:

July 24, Soldier by Harlan Ellison
An ultimate future soldier created only to kill (Michael Ansara) finds himself in the 20th century, and protects Lloyd Nolan from a similar enemy who also came back thru time (Ellison was eventually credited with inspiring The Terminator movie).